When Lawrence led the Arab revolt against the Turks during the first world war, he did so with a community and not an army. The British never sent more than a handful of advisors to Arabia because they feared (rightly) an Arab backlash against a military occupation. So, without an army to rely upon, Lawrence built a community of war from the grab bag of individuals and tribes he had access to. What Lawrence built is best termed a community because (I strongly recommend BH Liddell Hart's book on Lawrence of Arabia for insight into his methods):
- there was little formal structure (a nest of relationships),
- participants flowed in and out based on their fill of loot, honor, religious fervor, and revenge (benefits of membership..),
- and, it was formed in response to a central premise: to expel the turks from Arabia.
This premise-based community of war is an ancient method of warfare updated by modern communications technology -- cell phones, e-mail, Web sites, etc. Its structure likely follows similar topic/interest/goal centric communities that use similar tools of coordination. Valdis Krebs, an extremely talented social network analyst (listen to interview with Valdis), sent me a diagram of this type of community (see attached graphic, click for greater detail). He points out that this pattern is routinely found in emergent communities he has mapped. The diagram depicts four types of nodes:
- Yellow nodes: leadership. These people are the core leadership of the organization. "They have denser connections to other leaders" and other main network nodes. They keep everything together as the group's connectors.
- Red nodes: active members. Active members are tightly connected to the leadership nodes (yellow). They, in combination with the yellows, are what people refer to as the "group."
- Blue nodes: people actively seeking membership. These people aren't formally connected to the core group. They are actively working on ways (relationships, credibility, etc.) to connect to the "group."
- Green nodes: lurkers and potential members. People in this category are not active members of the group. They may or may not undertake actions that are in line with group goals.
- The core leadership is still intact. All of the well known leadership figures (whose position has been enhanced by attention from the state and media) are intact and active. They have substituted direct group interaction with passive communication via the Internet and the media. Video and audio Web casts that outline group goals and strategies and globally distributed (these broadcasts are likely truthful given the need for transparency in this type of communication).
- A large portion of the community is impossible to detect. Blue and green nodes, not directly connected to the group, can still act. This large (1/3 of the community's mass is green nodes) stealth group presents a significant and ongoing threat. They are likely, given the group's new communications dynamic, to act independently or attempt to make connections in an effort to gain membership in the group. Full membership would be validated by passive leadership multimedia Web casts. The London bombers were likely blue nodes. As long as the top leadership remains intact and communicative, they are likely to act in concert with the community's goals.
- Stealth groups with the capabilities necessary for large operations can form organically. External groups of blue nodes can have hidden connections to sections of the disrupted core red group. These connections can be used to form the high capability teams necessary for large operations (i.e. WMD).